The small town of Wasseypur is located in northeastern India, absorbed in many ways by the larger city of Dhanbad. Wasseypur is sort of the Newburgh, New York or Camden, New Jersey to Dhanbad’s New York City or Philadelphia — a small, incredibly dangerous, largely lawless enclave attached to the outskirts of a much larger…
Attempting to cram every single flashy editing trick into one film, and usually into one scene, and sometimes into a single shot, this Bollywood espionage thriller is as entertaining as it is moronic. And it is really moronic. It’s been said that in an effort to appeal to as massive a population as possible, the…
For anyone who ever watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and was disappointed that, for all its over-the-top absurdities, it didn’t feature a scene where Harrison Ford punches a midget and makes him fly across a field, then Naksha is the movie for you. Only it’s not Harrison Ford doing the punching; it’s…
At some point, online emoticon technology will advance to the point where there is a little smiley face thing that perfectly expresses the sentiment of me shaking my fist toward the heavens and yelling, “Dharmendra!!!” And when that technology exists, I will insert it into this and several other reviews, because it seems like every…
Try to imagine that, like me, your life has become a steady parade of disappointments and squandered potential, but then one day, the following happens: having previously been enlightened as to the existence of a Bollywood ninja movie — a rip-off of American Ninja from the same cast and crew that brought the world Disco…
1967 saw the release of You Only Live Twice, a James Bond movie full of ninjas, hollowed-out volcanoes, egg-shaped monorail pods, and Sean Connery as the world’s most convincing Japanese man. The Eurospy trend was still swinging, and even Japan and Hong Kong were getting in on the fun. The result is that, soaked in…
At the risk of sounding even more like a broken record than I usually do, allow me once again reiterate a common theme for much of what we discuss here: exploring the vast world of international cult cinema is as frustrating as it is rewarding. Rewarding because, obviously, it opens a whole world — quite…
